The Haunting

One of the phone calls I received at the hospital last week was from the DA in Hayesville.  The trial for Mary's killer will not happen until September and then there's no guarantee.  It was rather anti-climatic.  The little guy sitting on my shoulder kept telling me it would not be in February.  There is a court appearance due on Feb 15th.  We will be there with bells on.  Staring daggers through the back of his head.  

He is not truly remorseful or he'd just admit what he did and get it over with.  Every time we go to court it's as if the scene is played in slow motion over and over.  But we will go and haunt him. 

Terrified

I wrote that last entry a few hours before I found Danny laying on his sofa, shaking, coughing, and scared.  I felt his head and put a thermometer in his mouth.  Called Emory and then told him to put his feet in his slippers we were heading to Emory.  He had been sick for a few hours but didn't wake me.  Says he thought he would get over it.  His phone was too far away to call me.  It only takes a few hours to go from feeling fine to deathly sick for him.  We found this out almost exactly 2 years ago when the same thing happened, different illness, stronger heart.  

Last time we were both scared.  He had never been sick like this in his life, before or after transplant.  The attack was so fast it was mind boggling. It happened on a Monday night, this time was early Tuesday morning.  The ER was awesome.  There were doctors, nurses, needles, blankets, and machines all flying in and out of his room.  Within an hour and a half they had him in CICU hooked up to wires and tubes, taking more blood each hour for more tests.  The lesson I learned this time around is - coughing stresses your heart.  The lesson that was reinforced was - there's nothing you can do for a virus.  You just watch what it does and fight the fires.  

For 36 hours they didn't know what was wrong.  They pumped him full of various antibiotics, just in case...  Gave him Tamiflu... just in case...  (Found out that Tamiflu doesn't really do much for the flu.)  Once they found the virus they concentrated on his heart more.  Fightin' the fires...

My biggest fear was that if a heart "came in" (sounds so disassociated from real life) they would not give it to him because he had an infection.  But the doctor reassured me that a heart for him would be a one in a million and they would not pass it by, sick or not.  It sounds reassuring from one stand point but terrifying from another.  Later I had to ask the other obvious question - if a heart doesn't come fast enough what machines are available to keep him alive?  Emory does have machines to do this but have never been used on a transplanted heart.  Not sure what that means but I was not in the mood to question that.  

I said in my last entry that if something happened to Danny I would just go away.  If someone up there is playing with me, please stop. It's has pissed me off royally.  I do not need a rehearsal for life.  I do not need my words to be thrown in my face.  I do not need reminders of what waits around the corner ready to strike when you least expect.  Neither does Danny.  He gets scared and tries not to show it.  We just sit and hold hands and rub fingers together.  I must have kissed his forehead and cheeks a hundred times.  When they told me to put on a mask to protect me from the virus he had, it was way too late for that.  We were coming or going together.  

Kerry kept working to keep his mind from wandering. I came home each night, leaving Julie or Amanda to stay with him, but got little good sleep.  I wanted to be there but I have to be ready and able to be awake for a long time when they call with a heart.  

Two years ago I called Mary while waiting in the ER.  This time I called Tony.  Danny's brother from another mother.... I like that saying.  And my son-in-law.  That keeps him together with Mary.  You're only as strong as your weakest link.  Mary is/was my strong link.  I have too many weak ones, they may all pop at one time.  Julie has her babies to worry about.  Anna will be her strong link.     

I don't know

I don’t know where I’m going

I don’t know where I’ve been

I do know I am walking

Round that bend again …

Can’t hear what they’re saying

Can’t see what they’ve done

But I can feel the air around me

And it’s full of sarcasm

Oh help me

Help me find my way

Help me climb outta this hole I’m digging’ myself in

I don’t want to see the rainbows

Don’t want to feel the warm sunlight

I do wish I could touch you

Just to prove I’m right

Can’t get ‘round the mountain

Can’t swim that river’s flood

But I can see the truth around me

And it’s full of sarcasm

Oh help me

Help me find my way

Help me climb outta this hole I’m digging’ myself in

I haven’t logged into Mary’s email account in months.  I don’t check her facebook wall very often.  I just looked today.  Her friends were saying happy birthday to her.  Sometimes her picture will pop up on the right side as FB asks you to send a message because you haven’t talked to someone in awhile or something like that.  Wonder how long we can leave her page on FB.  How long can I pretend she’ll send me a message or post to my wall.  I try so hard not to cry when I think of Mary.  I love saying her name but it hurts so much.

I could so easily sit around the house watching TV just doing absolutely nothing but so many things on TV have Mary stamped across them.  I can’t watch wedding ads or look at them in magazines.  Can’t watch car chases, can’t watch romance flicks (that rules out a fair amount of movies since someone is always kissing someone in them).  I’m not sure how Tony’s goes hiking and camping without Mary but then he can’t see how I can have parties for Mary.  Guess we each do what we can do. 

I’m still wearing her clothes and jewelry and shoes.  Melissa gave me back a box of material of Mary’s but I can’t open it.  One day, maybe.

The bank owns the house now.  There is nothing left of Mary or Tony in NC.  Well, maybe not nothing.  Carol has some plants of Mary’s and a couple of knickknack’s (I can’t believe that’s how you spell that word).  But for the most part their spark, their spirit, their song is long gone.  I hope Tony will find his way again some day.

Another court day coming up on Feb 15^th.  Hope to find out when the trial will be sometime this week.  Do you have any idea what it’s like waiting for this and waiting for Danny’s heart at the same time?  Waiting for another bomb to drop.  I’ve said before I don’t know what will happen to me if something happens to Danny.  Well, today I know.  I will just go away where no one can find me.  Ask me tomorrow and I may have another answer.

Now I want to go spend some time with my sweet baby boy – even if he is bigger than me I can still call him my baby.

Keep on walking

I seem to be going backwards some what.  Crying to and from work again, replaying the crash in my head, seeing Mary’s face with the headlights in her eyes.  Maybe she didn’t even realize what was happening… I wish….but there were tire tracks from brakes and they weren’t from his truck.  If she could only just tell me to quit worrying about her.  I don’t dream about her at all. 

Every day life keeps getting in the way of memories of Mary.  I don’t like the word memories anymore.  It emphasizes the past and I don’t want her in the past.  I want her in front of me walking with me hand in hand. 

I smile, I laugh, I keep moving along but once your eyes are turned away the smile fades, shoulders sag, eyes start to burn, and loneliness sets in.  I go to work and have goals to accomplish which I do most days. But how do you respond to people when they say “Hey! How’s it going?” or some other average, casual, blithe, cursory, nonchalant, effortless, perfunctory, indifferent, frivolous greeting, that for other people, is perfectly appropriate?  As anyone knows, people don’t really want a detailed in depth response anyway.  They are just showing good etiquette or proper protocol for two people greeting each other.  The hard part for me is .....I WANT to talk about Mary.  I want to tell the world what they are missing, how it happened, the injustice, etc.  Every person who has lost someone extremely close to them is consumed by the urge to live in the past with that person so that person will be alive again.  I can see it in the eyes of parents whose child has been gone for years and years.  The urge, the all consuming coat of memories, is worn at all times no matter what the mental weather is.

This need to talk is probably irksome to others.  I am put in the group of “oh, don’t get her started” people.  I can’t blame them.  I’m in the minority, thank god.  I don’t want them to understand the reality.  I’m not sure what I want from them.  Maybe to not assume that everything is “OK” even though that’s my “proper” answer to the cursory question.  (Here goes the windmill in my mind.)  Why do I care what they think?  I don’t want someone to look at me and “feel sorry” for me, treat me like a pariah.  On the other hand, I am not the same happy go lucky person I was (if, indeed I was ever that). 

I can truthfully say I was much more optimistic about life before Mary was taken.  I loved the song “Bring on the Rain” because it talks about loosing a battle but not the war, so “bring on the rain – I can handle it”.  Well, I can’t handle it anymore and I don’t want to.  I am very cynical about people now.  People’s personalities don’t change during traumatic events.  I used to think life changing events did just that.  But they don’t.  (I’m not talking about exceptions.)  Assholes will always be assholes, angels will always be angels.  I think the personality intensifies.  Or maybe, it changes for awhile but not forever. 

There’s no such thing as luck, prayer only helps the one praying, there is no one “watching over you from above”.  I now believe life is random.  God may have created life but he’s just letting it take its course.  And I believe we have more effect on other peoples’ lives than we do on our own.  Then again, ask me next week what I believe and you may get a totally different prospective.  In general, life sucks.

One more time

I’m posting all my writings I’ve kept since my last one on Nov 13^th. Start on 11/21.  I quit posting them because someone tried to use my words of grief in a mean and vindictive manner.  Then I pretty much lost the desire to write but forced myself when I needed to.  So now, only a few true friends can even get to this site.   


I'll finish posting the rest soon.

Where or where has my Mary gone

Where or where can she be?

With her hair cut short and her million dollar smile

Where or where can she be?

Happy Birthday Mary

Don’t forget

Don’t’ forget me

Don’t forget what you did that night

Just remember

Just remember my face

Just remember the terror in my eyes

Don’t forget to remember…..

Every night I’ll be in your dreams

Every day I’ll get in your way

Every time you think you’re finally free

I’ll be there to remind you…..to remind you of me

You were ridin’ high, not a care in the world

Couldn’t even see the lines on the highway

I was cryin’ tears of loss for my friend

Just tryin’ to get home to see my family

We met upon the road, that cold dark lonely night

You couldn’t even see straight as you crossed that middle line

You should have driven off that mountain side

But I saved your life…..I saved your life 

By being in the right place at the wrong time

I saved your life….. don’t forget to remember me